Searching for someone
by Hawklan
Summary: A robed man reaches Sunnydale after a long while
1. Chapter 1

Searching for someone

by Hawklan

Summary: A robed man reaches Sunnydale after a long while.

Story Notes:

Disclaimer: BTVS belongs to Joss Whedon and Merlin to BBC. I just write this for fun and not for money, so suing me is just not worth your time.

Timeline: Somewhere after The Zeppo for BVTS and a couple of centuries after Merlin.

Status: Currently not betaed, because that bunny bit me as I wanted to write more of my story "The reading". So if you like to beta-read feel free to go over that short bunny and send it to me and also if you would like to beta following chapters.

Chapter One

At the city borders of Sunnydale

A man in a long black robe walked along the highway, which got him from LA to Sunnydale, as he reached the sign 'Welcome to Sunnydale' he kept standing for a while lost in his thoughts, 'Finally, I'm here, the home of the Hellmouth, another one . I just hope I find him here and that he is worthy. I'm just too tired to search for him much longer.' Taking a breath he walked into the town.  
Silently cursing, "Damn that Hellmouth, it's to strong and I can't sense much. I hate asking for directions."

After he walked a bit further he finally saw four men and a women who were coming in his direction. He waited for a few moments until they were nearly directly in front of him and then stepped out of the shadow of the house where he waited before.

"Good evening Madame and Sirs. I was hoping you could tell me where in this nice town I can find the local school? I'm looking for someone there, he said to the strangers.

Surprised the group took a few steps back and one of the men said, "Woah old man, where did you come from so suddenly? We didn't saw you at all and it's down that way," he pointed down the street, "but you won't need the direction anymore because you just presented yourself as a free meal to us," he said while grinning like an evil clown. Without another word he tried to jump the robed man, but before he could reach him the man just looked at him and suddenly his eyes changed color for a moment and the attacking vampire suddenly started to cry in agony before he first burst into flames and then to ash.

"The bastard killed Jake. Kill him," one of the others yelled.

Just a few seconds later there was only the robed man and five piles of dust left, shaking his head the man mumbled, "Stupid beasts, sometimes I wonder why there are still some of those stupid things left, they still are as stupid as the first one I had to kill a few centuries ago."

Without losing anymore time he started to walk into the direction the vampire gave him and around an hour later he saw the sign of the Sunnydale High school, speeding up his steps a bit he reached the closed doors (it's in the late evening after all), he shortly waved his right hand and the doors opened before him. Without pausing he walked through the corridors of the school until he reached the library, there he paused for a moment to listen.

After he did that for a minute or two he smiled and thought, 'Well, looks like the slayer is here also."

He raised his hand and knocked at the door, then without waiting for an answer he entered into the suddenly very quiet room. "Good  
evening ladies, I was told I can find a Mr. Giles here who could help me to find someone I am looking for."

"GILES!" The blonde girl who he guessed was Slayer, because of her standing in a combat ready stand and a stake in her hand, yelled, "here is some guy for you."

The door of the back offices and a man left it.

The robed man took a couple of steps back and said in a surprised tone, "Uther?"

Chapter End Notes:

.  
End Notes: I know its short, but that just wanted out *g*


	2. Chapter 2

Note: Just for the Merlin fan's here. What I'm talking about here hasn't happened in the series so there are no spoilers.

Beta: Inachis

Chapter 2

It was so quiet for a moment that you could hear a needle fall to the ground.

Buffy, looking at the shocked faces of the stranger and her watcher, broke the silence, "Giles?"

"Uhh," mumbled Giles and, ignoring Buffy, he said into the direction of the stranger, "Merlin? What a surprise. I thought you were dead, because I never heard or read anything about you after the fall of Camelot."

Willow interrupts the stranger who just wanted to start talking, "Camelot?Merlin?Gilesyoudon'?'.."

"Breathe, Willow breathe," Buffy interrupted the babble fest Willow had started. "Merlin, as in the wizard Merlin or were your parents just cruel to name you after a fish?"

Merlin looked at Buffy, smiled and answered, "To that I have just one thing to say. BUFFY!"

Before Buffy had a chance to answer, he turned to Giles again, "No, you wouldn't have. After Arthur died I turned into a hermit for a hundred years or so. After I gave up that life style I wandered through England for while and hearing the growing Legend about King Arthur and myself, I decided it would be better to take another name. And what about you? How can you be alive? The dragon roasted you after he got finally free, which was so not my fault."

"No, it wasn't. I never should have imprisoned him in the first place, but I was so blinded by my hatred against magic at the time, I made so many errors in regards of handling magic and things around it. I still cannot believe I never realized you were a wizard, even after you saved Arthur so many times. This in hindsight was better, as I would have executed you for sure. I'm still alive, because the dragon didn't really kill me with his fire. He cursed me."

Merlin, Willow and Buffy looked astonished at Uther/Giles.

After a few moments Merlin and Willow asked at the same time. "He cursed you? How?"

Giles looked at Merlin and the two girls for a moment and then he replied, "He cursed me with immortality and believe me, it is a curse and not a gift."

While Willow and Buffy looked still astonished at Giles, Merlin just nodded in agreement and then Giles continued. "As you can surely guess Merlin, that wasn't all. The fire of the dragon didn't kill me, as I said before, but it hurt me quite well. I spent nearly sixty years in a magical coma until I was healed again. After that I wandered a bit around the Isle and after a while I realized what had happened to me. Sixty years had gone by and the land was in chaos. The Pendragon line died with my son, or at least I thought so at that time, and there was a civil war going on for quite a while, as you will have seen for yourself."

Merlin just nodded.

"I was first thinking about trying to reunite the Kingdom again, but after a grandson of one of my former allies put a sword through my gut, I gave up on that plan. It took me awhile to get up to my feet again and after I was whole, I started to wander around and after 20 years, during which I finally noted that I wasn't aging, the dragon found me and explained my curse to me."

Merlin looked up and asked, "What did he say?"

"He told me that for my crimes against magic and her people I was cursed from then on to help those with magic in need, until Arthur returns from Avalon in the Kingdom's greatest need. I could have pleaded for mercy, but at that time I was still too proud and too much of my former hatred regarding all things magical was still with me. It took me quite a while to overcome that.

Later my restlessness brought me to a small village in Scotland just after dark. There I met a small tiny girl who was fighting off a gang of brutes. I quickly drew my sword and just as I wanted to rush in to help her, one of the brutes suddenly exploded into a cloud of dust.

As you can guess that was my first meeting with a slayer and the first dusting of a vampire I had seen. I was so surprised about this, that I stopped my rush for a moment, in which the girl fought of another one who exploded into dust as well. Then I remembered a few tales Gaius had told me about creatures called vampires and so I raised my sword again and stormed in to help the girl. I quickly beheaded the first brute, which exploded into dust as well. Together we quickly got rid of the rest of those brutes, but sadly it looked like I came a bit to late. The girl had received quite a heavy wound before I came and had lost too much blood already.

While I tried to do anything I could to save her, she told me her story and about the watchers. Then a short while later she died in my arms and somewhere another poor girl was called to the fate of the slayers. I searched the whole village, but it looked like the vampires had already killed everyone in it. Because I didn't know much about vampires at that time, I feared all of the villagers would rise soon as vampires as well and so I build a huge funeral pyre. That took me quite a while.

While I put everybody I could find on it, I found the body of a man who wasn't dressed the same as the locals. On him I found a diary. I quickly looked into it and it seemed like I had found the watcher of the poor girl. I hauled him on the pyre as well and then put a torch on it. To honor the poor girl, I build her an extra pyre and then gave her to the flames as well. After that I quickly left the village and put a few miles behind me. There I made camp and after sleeping a while I studied the diary. After that I traveled to Londinium where the Watchers had their base."

Buffy, who was caught in the tale, looked up and asked, "Londinium?"

Willow quickly said, "That was the Roman name for London."

Giles and Merlin nodded to that.

"Why didn't you say so then Giles?" Buffy complained.

"Because at that time, it was still called Londinium," Giles replied.

"Humpff...," Buffy added.

"What happened next? "Willow asked.

"Over the next centuries I joined the Watchers from time to time and I tried everything I could to help the slayers. Sadly, the council had gone quite downhill since that time and there wasn't much I could do about that. So I just tried to help the Slayers when I could and in the time between I helped out with a lot of other magical problems wherever help was needed."

"But how did your fall to the chaos magic and the whole Ripper episode with Ethan?" Willow asked.

Giles smiled at that, not surprised that Willow caught that hole in the story. "Simple Willow, it all happened as you know it with one small change. Rupert 'Ripper' Giles fell into even deeper black magic after the whole Eyghon incident where one of his 'friends' died and to make that story short, I killed him while he tried to summon another demon and took his place."

Merlin just nodded at that. He already had guessed something like that had happened.

Willow and Buffy just looked in shock at Giles.

Both tried to say something several times, but didn't come up with anything.

Suddenly the door to Library opened behind him without all of them noticing it and then they heard a well known voice. "Uhh guys..What's with the fish expressions? Did I miss something?" Xander asked into the round.


	3. Chapter 3

Note: At the moment I'm writing this I have only seen Merlin Season 1 + 2 and so you have to excuse me if something out of Season 3 contradicts something I write here.

Note2: As always my thanks go out to Inachis, without her you wouldn't read my stuff :)

Chapter 3

All looked around and stared at Xander. Suddenly both Willow and Buffy began to giggle.

Xander looked at his two friends in confusion and then looked down on himself to see if there was something funny on him. Not finding anything he looked up again and asked, "What?"

As the two girls started to giggle even more Xander looked at Giles, who he regarded as more of a father than his own, and asked, "Giles...why are Ms. Slayer and Ms. Hacker in a giggle fest?"

Giles who smiled himself a bit took a deep breath and answered, "My guess would be because of your question 'Did I miss something?' to which the answer would be a certain yes."

At seeing the questions on Xander's face the two girls started to hiccup from all the giggling.

After the girls calmed down a bit, Giles quickly explained what had happened so far to Xander.

Xander looked at Giles and Merlin for a moment and then said. "Uther and Merlin? Wow that's awesome and Merlin? I always loved your duel with Madam Mim. That was just funny to watch."

While Merlin and Buffy looked a bit confused about that comment, Giles groaned and Willow started to giggle again. Merlin looked at the young man for a moment and in a comic you would have seen a big question mark above his head for sure, finally he asked, "Madam Mim?" which made Willow giggle even more.

Rupert or Uther, whatever you prefer, quickly explained to Merlin what Xander was talking about, to which Merlin just shook his head with an amused smile. He then turned to the young man who had just joined them and started to look at him quite intensely. As his eyes stared to glow Xander soon became quite nervous and asked, "Uhh Giles, what is he doing? It looks like he is studying me."

Before Giles could answer Merlin seemed to join them in this world again and replied, "Indeed young man, I was studying you and your aura. I came here to search for someone and it looks like I found you."

"You were looking for me? Why?" Xander asked surprised.

"I was looking for you, young Alexander, because," here he paused a bit and then continued after taking a deep breath, "you are the last Pendragon."

In the silence that descended at those words you could have heard the fall of a pin, but that silence was shattered only a moment later by the yell of "What?" out of four shocked throats.

Smiling, Merlin said, "Was I mumbling?" and after looking around he cleared his throat and said loud and clearly. "You Alexander are the last Pendragon or the great, great, great whatever grandson of Uther Pendragon, who you currently know under the name Rupert Giles."

"He is my great grandson? How is that possible? Arthur never had children before he died," Giles said and at the same time Xander said, "The G-Man is my grandfather?" While Buffy just repeated the formerly uttered "What?" and Willow said. "My Xander is of Arthur Pendragon's bloodline? I don't believe it." And as she remembered who Giles truly is, she stuttered, "Sorry Giles, I meant to say your bloodline."

Giles closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath and then said, "Merlin, could you explain that? My son died childless and I never had any other children."

"Maybe we should sit down first?" Merlin said and after all nodded and sat down at the huge table in the middle of the library they usually used for research, Merlin's eyes glowed again for the fraction of a second, causing Giles' tea kettle and several cups to fly out of his office.

As the children all stared at him with open jaws and Giles just shook his head and quietly mumbled, "Showoff", Merlin poured them all a cup of tea. After he had sipped at his, he finally said, "As far as we all knew, at least at that time, you are right and Arthur died childless. As always though, history turns out to having a 'BUT' in there somewhere and our 'BUT' at that time was named Gwen."

At this Giles looked up and said, "Morgana's servant?"

"Indeed My lord," Merlin replied and then continued. "After Morgana betrayed us all, you had Gwen banished from Camelot because she was your wards servant. As always, you ignored everything Arthur tried to tell you and so she left Camelot. I helped her to find our friend Lancelot and after a while their friendship and attraction let to more and the two then lived quite happily together. Gwen had two children."

Giles looked thoughtfully at Merlin and then said, "Quite interesting, but what exactly has that to do with my son?"

"Quite simple really, Sir. Gwen and Lancelot only became a pair after her first son was a little over six months old. What Arthur tried to tell you was that he and Gwen loved each other, but as you so often did at that time, you brushed him off and none of us knew that Gwen was already pregnant when she left the castle," Merlin explained with a pained expression while Giles buried his head in his head.

"Why have you never told us?" Giles asked a bit later.

"Because I didn't know then myself. I visited them whenever my duties in the castle allowed it, which wasn't often, and so I thought that the child was Lancelot's son. I only learned the truth much later and by that time the dragon had already killed you, as we all thought, and Arthur had died on the battlefield."

Giles sat shocked in his chair and after a few moments he took his cup of tea with sharking hands and drank a sip out of it. Then he looked at Merlin for quite a while, unsure of what to say. After a few moments of silence Xander asked, "So what happened then? Why isn't the Pendragon line still sitting in the land of tweet?"

Merlin smiled at that and replied, "After Arthur died chaos came over the land, a time that is now called the Dark Ages. Minor nobles and kings fought over everything and no one was safe. As I said, I wandered the land for quite a while and so I only came back to Gwen and her family as her daughter celebrated her 15th birthday."

+S+

(Flashback, a few hundred years earlier)

The young man in rather torn traveling clothes, who had just entered the small village, looked to the casual observer rather tired, but that would have been a gross understatement. He walked to the middle of the village where he halted and then looked around. He seemed to orient himself as if he hadn't been here for quite a while, which in fact was the truth. The last time he was in this village was over 12 years ago and he hoped the family he wanted to see still lived here. He looked around a bit more and seemed to be trying to remember where to go, but if someone would have watched him more closely they would have seen his eyes flash golden for a moment. After that he strode out certainly to the north end of the village, where he knocked at the wooden door of a cottage.

It only took a few moments until the door was opened by a young girl, no he had to correct himself, by a young woman not older than 15 summers. "Yes?" the young woman asked with a bit suspicion of the stranger she had never seen before in her voice. Nowadays strangers were seldom good news.

The stranger smiled at the young woman and said, "Happy birthday Eliza. I'm here to celebrate your 15th birthday with you and your family. Is Gwen or Lancelot nearby?"

The girl looked a bit startled at the stranger who seemed to know her parents and that today was her birthday and then nodded. "Yes, they a both here," she replied.

"Good, would you tell them an old friend from better times is here to see them and their children? I'll wait here," the man said.

The girl who the man had called Eliza quickly closed the door again and the yell of, "Mother, Father" could even be heard outside.

The man smiled a bit more happiness than he had looked to have before and waited. A few moments later the door was opened again by an older, but still beautiful looking Gwen. She started to say, "Yes how can..." but as she looked at the face of the stranger, she went quite and looked surprised. "Merlin?" she said astonished.

"It's me," the man said. "Can I come in? I even have a gift for the birthday child."

Still shocked Gwen ushered her old friend in and quickly closed the door behind him. "Merlin...how?"

He looked at her questioningly and asked, "What how?"

"How can you still look like the last time we saw each other? You don't look one year older than when you left for your wanderings 12 years ago," she asked her friend out of old times.

Merlin shrugged. "I really have no clue, Gwen. If I had to guess, I stopped aging the moment Arthur fell, but I have no clue why. After all, I failed my duty that terrible day," he said solemnly, but he still noted that Gwen kinda blanched at that and so he asked, "What is it, Gwen?"

Gwen took a deep breath and replied, "I guess you will see as soon as Lance and my son come back in an hour."

Merlin nodded and let it be for the moment. Instead he pulled his backpack to him and looked at Gwen's daughter. "I know you don't remember me, but as you probably have guessed from my talk with your mother, I'm an old friend of your family. The last time I saw you, you hadn't even had your third birthday yet and so for all the birthdays I missed I have a special gift for you." With that he picked the old and worn looking backpack up and gave it to her.

Eliza looked at Merlin like he was crazy, but took the backpack and said, "Thank you, sir," while thinking something about 'crazy strangers' or so.

Seeing her look Merlin had to smile and said, "Ahh Eliza, don't call me crazy just yet, but check it out first."

Not wanting to anger the stranger the girl did as he asked and opened the pack. She looked into it and took out a few apples and a wineskin. After that she looked up at the stranger, who at that moment said, "And now think about a beautiful hand mirror and reach into the pack again." She shook her head, but did as the stranger asked and suddenly her eyes opened in surprise as her hand suddenly felt something in the pack. She closed her hand around it and as she pulled it out, she could see a beautiful silver hand mirror decorated with several emeralds and rubies. She couldn't help herself and a delighted "Oh" came out of her mouth.

Gwen looked in astonishment at the mirror, the pack, her daughter and then at Merlin. "Merlin?" she just said.

Merlin looked at her with his to her well known smirk and explained to both of them, "Ah, you know the backpack is something I came up with while I was traveling and got bored. You can put anything in it that fits trough the opening and hide it with a thought and only you or someone you allow to can take it out again. Awesome, isn't it?"

Before Gwen or her daughter could say anything they heard the door open and they heard a happy sounding voice yelling, "Merlin" and with that they saw Lancelot enter together with his son. At least Merlin thought so until he saw the young man. "That cannot be," he mumbled in astonishment. "What?" he asked looking at all of them.

"That's what I wanted you to see for yourself Merlin. My son Arthuros," Gwen said.

"He resembles Arthur like...like...," Merlin mumbled.

"Like a son," Gwen said quietly.

+S+

Merlin blinked a bit and came back into the now and then and looked at the faces of the four people who were listening to him. "And that was how I found out the line of the Pendragon survived," he concluded.

The four were speechless until Xander found his voice again, "But that still hasn't answered my question from earlier."

"Indeed, it hasn't. The times then weren't right for a bastard child of Arthur to come forward and claim the throne. He would have been assassinated by the nobles and other kings faster than he could have sat down on the throne. So I used magic to hide the Pendragon line until one of the descendants earned the privilege and then was named a knight. This has brought me here and to you now," Merlin explained.

"But why?" Buffy asked.

"You remember your stay in the hospital when you had the flu?" Xander asked and as Buffy nodded, he continued with a light blush on his face. "Angelus wanted to get to you then and when I used a bluff to drive him away, he named me your White Knight."

"You did what?" Buffy asked.

"I...I didn't let him pass to get to you and after he tried to mock me, he left," Xander explained.

"Xander...that... that was...," Willow muttered, not finding the right words.

"Heroic and worthy of a knight?" Merlin offered up and smiled as both girls glared at him.

Finally it seemed that Giles has found his voice again as well. "I had a grandson?" he asked no one in particular. Then he stood up and engulfed Xander in a grandfatherly hug.

A few moments later Giles let the surprised Xander go again, who then after a few moments he used to come over his surprise by being hugged by Giles, asked, "OK, that's all very interesting, but what now?"

Merlin smirked and said, "Now young Pendragon, I and Uther will start your training to prepare you."

Xander looked at the wizard in and had to ask, "Prepare me? Prepare me for what?"

"For the things coming for you," Merlin replied, which told Xander not really much.


End file.
